The 2010s haven’t just changed the way we talk. They’ve changed
what we talk about. Everyone now has a show; a channel; a niche that’s
specifically catered to thanks to an explosion in content.

In 2010, Netflix – then a DVD postal business – was already the
last word in streaming, with nine million users streaming content over the
‘net, and it’s only grown since then. And as 4G enabled video streaming to
smartphones on the go, the reach became pervasive. The 2018 Internet Phenomena
Report from Sandvine showed
that Netflix consumed 15% of the global internet bandwidth sending HD content
around the world.

Of course, Netflix isn’t the only streaming service standing
as we flip the calendar over to 2020. It’s now joined by more macro- and
micro-services than we can count. Research from the Swinburne University of
Technology found
that Aussie consumers have seven major heavyweight streaming services to
contend with. Telsyte meanwhile found
that 43% of Australian households currently have at least one streaming service
in the home.

Streaming moved from the movie and TV industry onto music
with its disruptive effects changing the way artists release music for their
fans. Mixtapes now reign supreme as so-called “album-artists” are left
grappling with a medium not suited to their style of release. Curiously, the
2010s brought with it the rise of streaming, the death of the compact disc and the
resurgence of vinyl as one of the primary consumption methods for music,
going to show that the classics never really die.

Sports have also been affected by the scale of change brought forth by the 2010s. When we gazed forward at the miraculous 2020s way back at the start of the decade, we imagined a future of entertainment that was very different to what eventually materialised.

In 2010, for example, we heralded the arrival of the 3D HD
television. With several pairs of proprietary glasses bundled with every set,
sports fans crowded around to watch sports broadcasts leap out of the TV and
into the living room. Literally.

Sports broadcasters in Australia and around the world experimented
with 3D broadcasts, with golf; ice hockey, and even extreme sports. Australian
broadcasters sent the State of Origin 3D in 2010, as well as the FIFA World Cup
with promises of additional content to follow.

But as 3D TV sales flagged, viewership fell and the cost of
licensing additional channel spectrum added up, the eye-popping experiment was
abandoned in favour of the content wars. Sports channels are now carved up and
offered to users on a subscription basis so that viewers can get the best of
exactly what they want.

Offerings like Kayo and even our Live Pass channels mean that fans can get closer to the action than ever before with high-resolution streams dripping with data at a much lower cost. And thanks to the proliferation of fast 4G and even 5G networks from Telstra, you can see your favourite team in more places than ever.

Innovations in technology such as the commoditisation of the
smartphone and the dramatic reduction the cost of sensor gear means that sport
is more high-tech than ever. Cricket now comes with cameras and sensors that
map every angle of a ground; soccer comes with goal-line technology for
pinpoint accurate scoring; the NFL comes with an array of gadgets designed to
improve the flow of play.

The future of sport is looking bright thanks to our 5G network, too. We’re currently developing a VR sports experience that can transport multiple users (able to interact with each other) inside a live sports event. Live entertainment experiences can also benefit from 5G thanks to real-time augmented reality services for fans. Imagine an AFL game where the crowd can track their favourite athletes and get the stats and trivia that sports fans thrive on, live through a mixed reality experience.

Luke Hopewell is an editor, tech expert and Senior Specialist Writer at Telstra Exchange. Luke joined Telstra in 2019 where he has had the privilege to help bring stories to life in a unique and human way. He was previously the head of editorial at Twitter Australia and the editor of cult tech site Gizmodo. For over a decade, Luke’s passion for technology has always driven him to seek out the latest gadgets and game-changers, and help others to understand how it all works. In another life he was a cyber security specialist where he sought to educate people about how to stay safe online. When he's not writing, he's getting outdoors and patting all the nice dogs he meets.

We’ve come a long way in 10 years. We’ve seen networks come and others go, celebrating our connectivity milestones along the way. Here’s our highlight reel from our decade in tech.

Data hungry

At the beginning of the decade, we couldn’t predict the explosive demand for data, and how we’d always be able to keep up with new and incredible technologies. But in the first 12 months of our 4G network, we connected a massive 500,000 devices, and were more than up to the task of servicing them with all the data they needed!

When we launched our AMPS (or 1G) network in April 1987 it
took until late 1992 before we reached the half a million customer milestone.
When we launched our GSM (or 2G) network in 1993 it took us two years to reach
the 100,000 customer milestone – so the pace has certainly picked up!

Need for speed

In 2010, it was common for Australians to be connected to a
theoretical maximum speed of 1.5Mbps on their home internet connections, with little to no need for big data caps
on the go unless they were serious business users.

But as we released our billion-dollar NextG network, we realised that this was all about to change. The convergent smartphones of the early 2010s meant that more could be done on the go, and we knew we had the network for the job.

In 2015, we crossed an incredible milestone that still feels
shocking to read: we crossed 1Gbps of theoretical maximum speed over 4G,
pushing the limits of LTE further than ever before. We successfully tested
1Gbps speed capability by aggregating together 100MHz of Telstra’s spectrum
holdings across five separate 4G channels integrated on our commercial end to
end network.

In 2017 Australians used around 40 per cent more data on the
Telstra mobile network than the previous year, with the day of the Mayweather-McGregor
bout topping the list for data usage in a 24-hour period.

What we have seen is that data usage has been growing
consistently and rapidly throughout the year.
All our top data days were in the second half of the year and the
biggest data day in the first few months of the year is just an average day
now.

And in 2019, the records kept tumbling. Gaming smash hit Fortnite redefined how people used our network this year. Read more about our big data spikes of the year here.

A wild, connected future: predictions for 2030

10 years ago, we had no idea that video would be the biggest driver of internet traffic. We didn’t know that connected devices would number in the billions. We didn’t know that we’d all be working from home. And we definitely didn’t know that we’d be five-minutes-to-midnight when it came to global climate change.

As we look forward into the next decade, we boldly predict
where we’ll be 10 years from now.

Plugging In

While many futurists predict the literal rise of flying cars by 2030, the more significant change will be how the four-wheeled future is powered.

A number of countries have already announced plans to ban
the purchase of new vehicles powered by internal combustion engines (ICEs) by
the year 2030. Denmark, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, the Netherlands and Sweden
will all ban the sale of new gasoline- or diesel-powered vehicles from 2030,
while Barcelona, Brussels, Cape Town, Hainan, Heidelberg, London and Los
Angeles have all announced similar plans. Other countries have announced
de-ICEing plans including Costa Rica, France, Norway, Sri Lanka and the United
Kingdom within the next two decades.

2019-20 was the year the electric car went from being a pipe
dream to a reality, and already in 2020 we’re staring down the headlights of
major manufacturers jumping on board to create more affordable models. Some of
the largest manufacturers even want up to 40% of their sales to be made up by
EVs by 2030.

No matter what the new cars of the future look like, it’s
going to be an electrified ride.

The New Colony

Since we crawled out of the caves, we’ve been developing new
ways to build our homes to shelter us from the elements. As the cost of labour
and materials continues to rise throughout the 2020s, we’ll be harnessing new
ways to construct environmentally sound homes by 2030. This means harnessing
the power of robotics and 3D printing to quickly “print” homes in as little as
24 hours.

The world’s first community of 3D printed homes has been unveiled in Mexico this year which allows families to live in high-quality, low-cost housing faster than ever before. The printer that made the homes is 10 metres in length and extrudes a quick-dry concrete mixture. Currently it can’t work in adverse conditions, but as the technology improves and becomes more reliable over the next 10 years, it’s set to revolutionise everything from low-cost housing through to disaster relief efforts.

Automation nation

Automation is the process of replacing human workers for
advanced robotics in the global workforce. It’s something that has already put
millions of humans out of work, and it’s not slowing down.

CEDA research shows that more than five million jobs – representing almost 40 per cent of the jobs that exist today – will likely be disrupted by technology in the next decade.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. Research from McKinsey and Company indicates that the number of jobs that the internet has disrupted and disappeared is lower than the number of jobs that the rise of the internet has created from new innovations and new industries. It’s around 2.6 jobs created for everyone that was rendered obsolete.

As new industries emerge throughout the 2020s, old
industries will evolve and reengineer themselves to create a connected
workforce of the future. Furthermore, we see a future whereby automated robots
will work alongside human operators to create greater efficiencies in the
workforce.

Research from PriceWaterhouseCoopers shows that the connected workforce of 2030 will look vastly different to the workforce of today thanks to technology. These changes will fundamentally reshape the way we engage with work and how we interact with our cities. Connectivity and environmental concerns will drive future workers to stay home rather than commute to an office. 5G will allow for near-instant communication, making high-resolution video chat more pervasive and useful than ever.

Employers may even implement rewards for workers who choose to work flexibly instead of commuting, as it falls in line with a broader organisational environmental policy.

Absolute connectivity

At the end of 2018, it was estimated that over seven billion devices were connected to the internet. When you think of the word “devices”, it’s easy to get caught up and think that we’re just talking about smartphones, tablets and laptops. The reality is, in fact, more pervasive than you think.

When we talk about devices, we’re talking about
solar-powered sensors, automated terminals and even vending machines that can
tell a company when it needs to be refilled. The machine-to-machine internet is
alive and well already, and by 2030 it’s going to be absolutely everywhere.

Research predicts that by 2030, over 100 billion devices – including consumer smartphones, sensors and smart machines – will be hooked up to the modern internet.

Think of everything in your life right now, right down to
the clothes you’re wearing. It’s more than likely that by 2030, there will be
an internet-connected version on the shelves, waiting for you to use.

Think about a coat that was connected to the internet that
could ventilate itself based on changing weather conditions, all the while playing
your favourite music through bone-conduction audio in the collar. Think about
how businesses will be able to streamline their workflow once every device on
their network is reporting its status for effective workforce management. The
possibilities are endless, and some haven’t even been discovered yet.

Thankfully, we’ll already have widespread 5G coverage by 2030 with more latency and capacity available on the network than ever before. We’ll also have a more mature dedicated Internet of Things network to compliment the leading one we already have.

The Sinkernet

On our current climate trajectories, the world will experience an ocean level rise of 15cm by 2030 – potentially higher if our behaviour gets worse. Technology built from the 1990s and into the 2010s was constructed on existing coastlines and often without thought to how it would be future-proofed against catastrophic climate shift.

We boast the largest undersea cable network in all of Asia, and we’re proud to maintain it into the future. Scientists warn, however, that land-based cable networks aren’t built to withstand the same kind of conditions as their underwater cohorts. If left unchecked, internet landing stations that connect oceanic cables into countries could be under threat due to climate change. And it’s not just connectivity that would be threatened. Research shows that facilities currently on dry land – including data centres, points of presence and other landing stations – run the risk of being underwater by 2030.

Luke Hopewell is an editor, tech expert and Senior Specialist Writer at Telstra Exchange. Luke joined Telstra in 2019 where he has had the privilege to help bring stories to life in a unique and human way. He was previously the head of editorial at Twitter Australia and the editor of cult tech site Gizmodo. For over a decade, Luke’s passion for technology has always driven him to seek out the latest gadgets and game-changers, and help others to understand how it all works. In another life he was a cyber security specialist where he sought to educate people about how to stay safe online. When he's not writing, he's getting outdoors and patting all the nice dogs he meets.